Mary Baker G. Eddy

“ The secret of Christian Science in right thinking and acting is open to mankind, but few, comparatively, see it; or, seeing it, shut their eyes and wait for a more convenient season; or as of old cry out: “Why art thou come hither to torment me before the time?”
Strong desires bias human judgment and misguide action, else they uplift them. But the reformer continues his lightning, thunder, and sunshine till the mental atmosphere is clear. The reformer must be a hero at all points, and he must have conquered himself before he can conquer others. ”

“ When a supercilious consciousness that saith “there is no sin,” has awakened to see through sin's disguise the claim of sin, and thence to see that sin has no claim, it yields to sharp conviction — it sits in sackcloth — it waits in the desert — and fasts in the wilderness. But all this time divine Love has been preparing a feast for this awakened consciousness. To-day you have come to Love's feast, and you kneel at its altar. May you have on a wedding garment new and old, and the touch of the hem of this garment heal the sick and the sinner! ”

“ It is not well to maintain the position that sin is sin and can take possession of us and destroy us, but well that we take possession of sin with such a sense of its nullity as destroys it. Sin can have neither entity, verity, nor power thus regarded, and we verify Jesus' words, that evil, alias devil, sin, is a lie — therefore is nothing and the father of nothingness. Christian Science lays the axe at the root of sin, and destroys it on the very basis of nothingness. When man makes something of sin it is either because he fears it or loves it. ”

“ In unctuous unison with nature, mortals are hoping and working, putting off outgrown, wornout, or soiled garments—the pleasures and pains of sensation and the sackcloth of waiting—for the springtide of Soul. For what a man seeth he hopeth not for, but hopeth for what he hath not seen, and waiteth patiently the appearing thereof. The night is far spent, and day is not distant in the horizon of Truth—even the day when all people shall know and acknowledge one God and one Christianity. ”

“ Now, what saith Christian Science? “When a man is right, his thoughts are right, active, and they are fruitful;he loses self in love, and cannot hear himself, unless he loses the chord. The right thinker and worker does his best, and does the thinking for the ages. No hand that feels not his help, no heart his comfort. He improves moments; to him time is money, and he hoards this capital to distribute gain.”
If the right thinker and worker's servitude is duly valued, he is not thereby worshipped. One's idol is by no means his servant, but his master. ”

“ Our only departure from ecclesiasticism on this subject is, that our faith takes hold of the fact that evil cannot be made so real as to frighten us and so master us, or to make us love it and so hinder our way to holiness. We regard evil as a lie, an illusion, therefore as unreal as a mirage that misleads the traveller on his way home.
It is self-evident that error is not Truth; then it follows that it is untrue; and if untrue, unreal; and if unreal, to conceive of error as either right or real is sin in itself. ”

“ Paul writes: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” To attain peace and holiness is to recognize the divine presence and allness. Jesus said: “I am the way.” Kindle the watchfires of unselfed love, and they throw a light upon the uncomplaining agony in the life of our Lord; they open the enigmatical seals of the angel, standing in the sun, a glorified spiritual idea of the ever-present God — in whom there is no darkness, but all is light, and man's immortal being. ”

“ The dazzling diadem of royalty will sit easier on the brow of good King Edward, — the muffled fear of death and triumph canker not his coronation, and woman's thoughts — the joy of the sainted Queen, and the lay of angels — hallow the ring of state.
It does not follow that power must mature into oppression; indeed, right is the only real potency; and the only true ambition is to serve God and to help the race. ”

“ God speed the right! The wise builders will build on the stone at the head of the corner; and so Christian Science, the little leaven hid in three measures of meal, — ethics, medicine, and religion, — is rapidly fermenting, and enlightening the world with the glory of untrammelled truth. The present modifications in ecclesiasticism are an outcome of progress; dogmatism, relegated to the past, gives place to a more spiritual manifestation, wherein Christ is Alpha and Omega. It was an inherent characteristic of my nature, a kind of birthmark, to love the Church; and the Church once loved me. ”

“ We admit that they do not kill people with poisonous drugs, with the lance, or with liquor, in order to heal them. Is it for not killing them thus, or is it for healing them through the might and majesty of divine power after the manner taught by Jesus, and which he enjoined his students to teach and practise, that they are maligned? The richest and most positive proof that a religion in this century is just what it was in the first centuries is that the same reviling it received then it receives now, and from the same motives which actuate one sect to persecute another in advance of it. ”

“ Is man, according to Christian Science, more transcendental than God made him? Can he be too spiritual, since Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”? Is God Spirit? He is. Then is man His image and likeness, according to Holy Writ? He is. Then can man be material, or less than spiritual? As God made man, is he not wholly spiritual? The reflex image of Spirit is not unlike Spirit. The logic of divine metaphysics makes man none too transcendental, if we follow the teachings of the Bible. ”

“ It should seem rational that the only perfect religion is divine Science, Christianity as taught by our great Master; that which leaves the beaten path of human doctrines and is the truth of God, and of man and the universe. ”

“ The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen sin, disease, and death, and he overcomes them through Christ, Truth, teaching him that they cannot overcome us. The resistance to Christian Science weakens in proportion as one understands it and demonstrates the Science of Christianity.
A sinner ought not to be at ease, or he would never quit sinning. The most deplorable sight is to contemplate the infinite blessings that divine Love bestows on mortals, and their ingratitude and hate, filling up the measure of wickedness against all light. ”

“ MY beloved brethren, methinks even I am touched with the tone of your happy hearts, and can see your glad faces, aglow with gratitude, chinked within the storied walls of The Mother Church. If, indeed, we may be absent from the body and present with the ever-present Love filling all space, time, and immortality — then I am with thee, heart answering to heart, and mine to thine in the glow of divine reflection. ”

“ The outcome of evil, called sin, is another nonentity that belittles itself until it annihilates its own embodiment: this is the only annihilation. The visible sin should be invisible: it ought not to be seen, felt, or acted: and because it ought not, we must know it is not, and that sin is a lie from the beginning, — an illusion, nothing, and only an assumption that nothing is something. ”

“ Let us all pray at this Communion season for more grace, a more fulfilled life and spiritual understanding, bringing music to the ear, rapture to the heart — a fathomless peace between Soul and sense — and that our works be as worthy as our words. ”

“ Is it necessary to say that the likeness of God, Spirit, is spiritual, and the likeness of Love is loving? When loving, we learn that “God is Love;” mortals hating, or unloving, are neither Christians nor Scientists. The new commandment of Christ Jesus shows what true spirituality is, and its harmonious effects on the sick and the sinner. No person can heal or reform mankind unless he is actuated by love and good will towards men. The coincidence between the law and the gospel, between the old and the new commandment, confirms the fact that God and Love are one. ”

“ Alternately transported and alarmed by abstruse problems of Scripture, we are liable to turn from them as impractical, or beyond the ken of mortals, — and past finding out. Our thoughts of the Bible utter our lives. As silent night foretells the dawn and din of morn; as the dulness of to-day prophesies renewed energy for to-morrow, — so the pagan philosophies and tribal religions of yesterday but foreshadowed the spiritual dawn of the twentieth century — religion parting with its materiality. ”

“ Christianity, as he taught and demonstrated it, must ever rest on the basis of the First Commandment and love for man.
The doctrines that embrace pantheism, polytheism, and paganism are admixtures of matter and Spirit, truth and error, sickness and sin, life and death. They make man the servant of matter, living by reason of it, suffering because of it, and dying in consequence of it. They constantly reiterate the belief of pantheism, that mind “sleeps in the mineral, dreams in the animal, and wakes in man.” ”

“ Christian Science stills all distress over doubtful interpretations of the Bible; it lights the fires of the Holy Ghost, and floods the world with the baptism of Jesus. It is this ethereal flame, this almost unconceived light of divine Love, that heaven husbands in the First Commandment.
For man to be thoroughly subordinated to this commandment, God must be intelligently considered and understood. The ever-recurring human question and wonder. What is God? can never be answered satisfactorily by human hypotheses or philosophy. ”

“ Love all Christian churches for the gospel's sake; and be exceedingly glad that the churches are united in purpose, if not in method, to close the war between flesh and Spirit, and to fight the good fight till God's will be witnessed and done on earth as in heaven.
Sooner or later all shall know Him, recognize the great truth that Spirit is infinite, and find life in Him in whom we do “live, and move, and have our being” — life in Life, all in All. ”

“ To-day you meet to commemorate in unity the life of our Lord, and to rise higher and still higher in the individual consciousness most essential to your growth and usefulness; to add to your treasures of thought the great realities of being, which constitute mental and physical perfection. The baptism of the Spirit, and the refreshment and invigoration of the human in communion with the Divine, have brought you hither. ”

“ Our heavenly Father never destined mortals who seek for a better country to wander on the shores of time disappointed travellers, tossed to and fro by adverse circumstances, inevitably subject to sin, disease, and death. Divine Love waits and pleads to save mankind — and awaits with warrant and welcome, grace and glory, the earth-weary and heavy-laden who find and point the path to heaven. ”

“ The knowledge of life, substance, or law, apart or other than God — good — is forbidden. The curse of Love and Truth was pronounced upon a lie, upon false knowledge, the fruits of the flesh not Spirit. ”

“ It is wise to be willing to wait on God, and to be wiser than serpents; to hate no man, to love one's enemies, and to square accounts with each passing hour. Then thy gain outlives the sun, for the sun shines but to show man the beauty of holiness and the wealth of love. Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. ”

“ BELOVED brethren, to-day I extend my heart-and-hand-fellowship to the faithful, to those whose hearts have been beating through the mental avenues of mankind for God and humanity; and rest assured you can never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in His service. Our first communion in the new century finds Christian Science more extended, more rapidly advancing, better appreciated, than ever before, and nearer the whole world's acceptance. ”

“ The unity and consistency of Jesus' theory and practice give my tired sense of false philosophy and material theology rest. The great teacher, preacher, and demonstrator of Christianity is the Master, who founded his system of metaphysics only on Christ, Truth, and supported it by his words and deeds.
The five personal senses can have only a finite sense of the infinite: therefore the metaphysician is sensual that combines matter with Spirit. In one sentence he declaims against matter, in the next he endows it with a life-giving quality not to be found in God! ”

“ Governed by the divine Principle of his being, man is perfect. When will the schools allow mortals to turn from clay to Soul for the model? The Science of being, understood and obeyed, will demonstrate man to be superior to the best church-member or moralist on earth, who understands not this Science. If man is spiritually fallen, it matters not what he believes; he is not upright, and must regain his native spiritual stature in order to be in proper shape, as certainly as the man who falls physically needs to rise again. ”

“ The question as to religion is: Does it demonstrate its doctrines? Do religionists believe that God is One and All? Then whatever is real must proceed from God, from Mind, and is His reflection and Science. Man and the universe coexist with God in Science, and they reflect God and nothing else. In divine Science, divine Love includes and reflects all that really is, all personality and individuality. ”

“ I but began where the Church left off. When the churches and I round the gospel of grace, in the circle of love, we shall meet again, never to part. I have always taught the student to overcome evil with good, used no other means myself; and ten thousand loyal Christian Scientists to one disloyal, bear testimony to this fact.
The loosening cords of non-Christian religions in the Orient are apparent. It is cause for joy that among the educated classes Buddhism and Shintoism are said to be regarded now more as a philosophy than as a religion. ”

“ The feverish pride of sects and systems is the death's-head at the feast of Love, but Christianity is ever storming sin in its citadels, blessing the poor in spirit and keeping peace with God.
What Jesus' disciples of old experienced, his followers of to-day will prove, namely, that a departure from the direct line in Christ costs a return under difficulties; darkness, doubt, and unrequited toil will beset all their returning footsteps. Only a firm foundation in Truth can give a fearless wing and a sure reward.
The history of Christian Science explains its rapid growth. ”

“ Now, destroy the conception of sin as something, a reality, and you destroy the fear and the love of it; and sin disappears. A man's fear, unconquered, conquers him, in whatever direction.
In Christian Science it is plain that God removes the punishment for sin only as the sin is removed — never punishes it only as it is destroyed, and never afterwards; hence the hope of universal salvation. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul, that is lost. ”

“ My faith assures me that God knows more than any man on this subject, for did He not know all things and results I should not have known Christian Science, or felt the incipient touch of divine Love which inspired it.
That God is good, that Truth is true, and Science is Science, who can doubt; and whosoever demonstrates the truth of these propositions is to some extent a Christian Scientist. Is Science material? No! It is the Mind of God — and God is Spirit. ”

“ Envy or abuse of him who, having a new idea or a more spiritual understanding of God, hastens to help on his fellow-mortals, is neither Christian nor Science. If a postal service, a steam engine, a submarine cable, a wireless telegraph, each in turn has helped mankind, how much more is accomplished when the race is helped onward by a new-old message from God, even the knowledge of salvation from sin, disease, and death. ”

“ Soul is immortal, but sin is mortal. To lose the sense of sin we must first detect the claim of sin; hold it invalid, give it the lie, and then we get the victory, sin disappears, and its unreality is proven. So long as we indulge the presence or believe in the power of sin, it sticks to us and has power over us. Again: To assume there is no reality in sin, and yet commit sin, is sin itself, that clings fast to iniquity. The Publican's wail won his humble desire, while the Pharisee's self-righteousness crucified Jesus.
Do Christian Scientists believe that evil exists? ”